Orkz - gib uz a brik

[Plaxor]

Finally, if you've kept reading, it's the ultimate comparison; Gorbag's Revenge vs. a Terror Ship!

Calculating out target acquisition firing capacity, survivability, launch capacity similar to those before we come up with an overall 117% in favor of the TS. Now, there are some unnamed advantages of GB, in that it is only one ship, so it has less 'leadership tests' to make to keep loaded. It also is going to have the best crew out there with it's special ability, and the fact that more hits accounts for lower crippling values, less likely to explode, better with boarding actions, more hits to take damage, more turrets, better rear armor etc.

Things learned here: Apparently GW does some math... this is weird. All the weapons came out to about the same values when compensating for points differences, at 5.84 wbs on the ts sides and 5.5 for GB, torps at the same, front weapons at 9.18 and 9.5 respectively. Launch cap at 6.68 and 7 everything was pretty close. At 17% seems like a good amount to compare for the BB benefits. considering it's a limited ship. However people still max out them Terrors, and don't take said Gorbags Revenge, I guess it's easier to have something to throw away. Overall, the BB feels like a better choice than 1.67 terrors, and I'll take it every time if able.

The thing that really killed the GB in this calculation was survivability with 14 'hits' compared to 18.37 , although it doesn't count quite the same, weapons were within 10% each time (counting targeting areas).

[Sigoroth]

I think that it should be noted that while having an increased footprint of fire is more desirable, it is not a linear scale. It would be if the enemy's ships were distributed randomly on the table-top. Since they aren't then players are able to manipulate the value of their ships individual footprints.

That is to say, if you only had a 90° forward fire arc and limited mobility (45° turns, 20cm speed) then you would do your best to ensure that at least some part of the enemy blob (ie, fleet) is present in that arc at all times. If you had the same speed and mobility but had a 180° forwards arc this would be easier to do and as such worth more. If you had a 270° fire arc it would be easier again, but this extra 90° arc of firepower is not as beneficial as the previous 90° arc.

Obviously it amounts to a different added percentage, but beyond that there is the fact that the enemy is not randomly placed on the board in any given turn. Because you know where they are in one turn you have a good idea of where they'll be in the next turn and so have the ability to plan ahead to keep them in your fire arcs/weapon ranges. If they were placed randomly at the start of each turn then increased fire arcs would translate linearly into increased usefulness.

Still, having said all that, I'm very much in favour of reducing the points costs of Ork ships significantly. This reduction can be disproportionate across the board to fix internal balance issues as well.

I'd not like to see BM interference cancelling rules in any shape, and would like to see individual non-FC Warmasters able to ignore the chain of command for their ships/squadrons special orders with an increase in the cost and decrease of availability of re-rolls for the fleet.

[Plaxor]

@Sigoroth

Yeah, you are right about the 90 degrees behind thing, although you can say that if some pesky escorts get behind you, you would rather have a couple brutes than a couple onslaughts. The value system is very subjective, as people will try to keep enemies in their optimum fire arc, some people prefer survivability, different weapons; these are all subjective things when it comes to this experiment.

It's just some research into the subject, as who knows, hits may be twice as valuable as firepower or speed. To really get a solid basis on the subject it would take further research from several different angles, including playing the escorts in squadrons of same points values against each other as well as other fleets escorts and capital ships.

Orks should have reduced cost on their escorts, if the orks get the cheapest capital ships, why not the cheapest escorts as well? It's justifiable at least from this experiment. As I said before the KK deserves a little bit of a points reduction to make it more comparable to the KK, and perhaps some points adjustments elsewhere.

Simple logic, if something isn't as good as it should be for its points, then either reduce its points cost or make it better.

I'm tired of hearing about the 6TS fleets, and would like to see internal balance tweaked to make it so you don't have to play that to win. Orks are supposed to be about their escorts, like Nate said, "Orks don't really do the capital ship thing", so make it that a player who does that is actually missing out on something. Even if it's something small.

[Plaxor]

Also as more notes, the heavy guns on cruisers are less valuable compared to those on escorts as the capital ships will more than likely be boarding instead of using their heavy guns. Additionally the brute is a bit skewed in it's weapon strength as if a player were to get within 15 centimeters, they would likely attempt to ram instead. Although this one is a minor discrepancy.

In 40k mathhammer is a lot easier, as there are little factors affecting how a model is played (as there really isn't much to do with maneuvering, and units have 360 los). Usually players will calculate out a units effectiveness vs terminator equivalents, marine equivalents, guard equivalents, and occasionally monster equivalents. These values are averaged, then combined with survivability and compared with points. I've seen it done a lot with tau....

Anyways, I think I might do some experiments with playstyle of ork escorts vs Imperial, Chaos, Ork, and 'Maybe' Eldar. Comparing a squadron or two of equivalent points in various scenarios.


It's unfortunate.... but I truly doubt that the HAs will listen to any pleas for points revision, as a lot of vessels and things could use it. Primarily reductions (as most people hate increasing values). I mean... I can think of at least 2 capital ships of every fleet that should be either increased or reduced in points cost.

[Plaxor]

Orky escorts vs ordinance/Imperial Escorts Pt. 1 (the death of the escorts!)

Taking an Onslaughts stats, we have it become subject to attack by both AC and Bombers.

1 ac counter has a 41.6% chance of killing an onslaught, 2 have a 90% chance of killing it. For a sword class escort (the closest comparable example) 1 ac would kill a sword 20.8% of the time, and two would only have a 60.6% chance.
1 bomber has a 33.6% chance of killing it, 2 would have 58.3% chance. Compared to the sword 1 would have a 10.5% chance, 2 would have a 26.8% chance.
1 torp (from the front, then the sides) will kill an ork 8.8%% of the time, whereas from the side 25%,  a sword would die from the front/sides 8.325% of the time.

Of course making Ac only effective on a 4+ as proposed would change this slightly:
1 ac=25% chance of killing onslaught, 2 have 56.25%,, almost the same as bombers. Similarly with the sword; 12.5%, and 37.5% respectively.

Now as more evidence for a points reduction in ork escorts, I guess I'll use my previous formula to compare the onslaught with the sword. Noting an account in survivability for the differences in armor, counting side/rear once.
a sword is 94.62% as survivable vs direct fire, counting for points. Now if we include what we know now about ordinance we can change this to: 125.6% survivability vs all weapons.
Also noting the difference in weapon strengths, an onslaught only has 76.9% as much firepower as the adjusted sword. For now we won't note the areas of attacks, as the sword will neatly double the onslaught in that. And as Sigoroth pointed out, the rear stuff isn't as important as what is in front of you.

So here we note that an onslaught is about 78% as effective as a Sword. Noting that comparing between different fleets is hard, because playstyle has a lot to do with it, but imperials are the closest. In this scenario, an onslaught should cost around 28 points, which is accurate with our comparison to the brute, which pegged it at 30. Now if we did some of the same things as our previous solution of increasing the onslaughts fp to d6+1 and reducing it to 35, then it would be about worth 90% of a sword, much more reasonable.

[Plaxor]

Now the value of ork ordinance: Comparing 4FBs to 4Bommers and 2fighters/bommers.

Against a cruiser with 2 turrets, 5+ armor, and a bb with 4 turrets and 5+ armor

FBS will get two hits against the cruiser on average. bombers will get 1.5. against the bb fighta bombers will get .66, and the bombers will get .33 hits

Now with the fighters... well it gets a little more complicated but they do an average of 1.68 hits against the cruiser and .4 hits against the bb. Apparently running bombers with an equal number of fighters is slightly more effective, but not by much.

Overall, at least against cruisers fbs are about 118% as effective as fighters/bomber mix, and against a bb they are 165% as effective. Considering the fact that a fleet is usually around 4 cruisers to one battleship, we can combine the values into this: fighter bombers are 127% as effective as 'standard' ordinance. Note, fighter bombers are slightly slower than fighters, so defence isn't calculated here, just sheer capacity to do damage. If you factor in this then the total would be about 106% depending on how you weighted the 5cm speed difference.

Anyways, it's no wonder people elect to take larger amounts of ordinance producing ships in ork fleets over escorts. With better than average ordinance capabilities, and less than average escort capabilities it makes the escorts seem almost like a joke.

A terror ship, presuming that it has it's enemy in the front and within 25 cm, will do about 3.155 points of internal damage to a ship with armor 5 facing. (assuming the defender elects to shoot at the fbs and not the torps). A squadron of onslaughts with adjusted points values will do 2.72 internal, assuming that the ship is facing them. Now if it's abeam, then well... this number drops to about .5, and rear of about 1.5. This doesn't account for the fact that ordinance will reach further during their turn, so if they don't counter you have longer range, and the shorter range of the onslaughts weaponry.

Now you may pose the argument, "the onslaughts don't have to reload! they have an advantage" well for experiments sake we'll presume that the terror has reloaded this turn and the onslaughts have locked on. In this case they would do 4.36 to the front, and 2.24 to the sides and about 3.3 to the rear. A little more substantial, but not much compared to the terror, who can elect to fire his batteries (instead of wasting them against shields) into fighters that might threaten his fbs or torpedoes, and not pose the risk of blask marker death to his ordinance.

[fracas]

A simple fix to ork that makes them more "shooty" would be to give all +1 turrets.
In addition even with the above all ork escorts should be 5 (for ramships) or 10 pts (all other ork escorts) cheaper. Both should be sufficient to make orks a predominantly escort based fleet more competitive and appealing.

I also like the idea of an assault based ork cruiser

[lastspartacus]

love the idea of an assault kroozer for sure.  More thoughts on the other things later.

[Plaxor]

@Fracas,

There is really no solid justification for reducing the cost of the brute or the ravager, unless you simply conclude that all escorts in general deserve a points reduction.

Anyways, a ravager as updated compared to the brute:

Ability to engage targets: the same as the onslaught at 55.8%
Firepower: for this we have to actually use 'damage caused' as a comparison, assuming armor 5 and an enemy ship with turrets 2 a Ravager would have 2.5 torps going through, assuming that this is a closing capital ship that is the equivalent of 3.5 weapons batteries. So 5.5 total batteries vs the adjusted 3.2 of brutes we have 171% effectiveness. Of course the ravager has to reload it's ordinance instead of other possible orders to keep firing, but that factor is not included here.
Survivability :  82.3% (now incorporating the value of turrets).
Overall: 103%

So as you can see a ravager has about a correct points cost. Although it does get more internal hits than wbs, but we'll assume this balances with having to reload, and the brute of course has the capability to ram.

No to make points values correct as far as my experiment, you have to give the savage gunship and onslaught a points cost of about 30. Or increase the savage gunships weaponry by 2, as well as the onslaughts, give them an extra turret, or do some mix of things.

Of course we discovered that ordinance is taken over the escorts, for good reason. Really the advantages that capital ships have over the escorts (at least in orks) is the ability to launch fighters, which covers the orky weakness of low armor and turrets. As well as being much better at boarding (really the orks only way of dealing with bbs and heavy armored vessels).

Escorts in orks don't really get more firepower relatively (presuming the enemies are in one arc, which they likely are), they don't have really any more speed or maneuverability, and they aren't able to deal with fast enemies really any better.

My plea, in essence is to reduce these two escorts slightly and increase their firepower. Even with reduced points values to the amounts that I've suggested for balance players will likely still opt to take TS instead to counter the Ork weakness. So unless the 4+ assault boat change happens, or these vessels get an extra turret, I still don't see it being likely.

Like we've seen, people don't take swords in imperial fleets, but for slightly different reasons. Still even with an increased statline and cheaper cost, we may still see them completely sidelined.

[horizon]

Like we've seen, people don't take swords in imperial fleets, but for slightly different reasons. Still even with an increased statline and cheaper cost, we may still see them completely sidelined.

IN players should never leave without escorts. Swords are top of the bill escorts. Good thing.

[Plaxor]

IN players should never leave without escorts. Swords are top of the bill escorts. Good thing.

So true...

[fracas]

Swords are cheaper than all ork escorts except brutes
And if we don't see enough swords it should come as no surprise regarding other escorts
Also considering assault boats

[horizon]

I really hope the new assault boat rule vs escorts is going to be official.

I mean, I use, like, appreciate and win with escorts. Giving them some more makes me happier and will also mean more escorts across all fleets.

[Plaxor]

I really hope the new assault boat rule vs escorts is going to be official.

I mean, I use, like, appreciate and win with escorts. Giving them some more makes me happier and will also mean more escorts across all fleets.

Yes... escorts should be at least on a 1:1 with any other ships in a fleet, but I would hope to make them desirable enough to make them 2:1.

The assault boat change would make them about on par with bombers, which is where they should be against escorts. I mean... it's only half the chart of a critical hit.... and it makes no sense that they should die from 'prow armament damaged'. Perhaps they could do something instead... maybe the escorts can't fire next turn, make turns, move more than half? but that would make ABS not very worthwhile.

[Plaxor]

Note: the area of acquisition is a good measure of maneuverability in Orks, basically a way of giving a value to the turns that a ship can make.

Now I'm considering doing a research method that I've seen done on Warmachine forums. Ultimately ships are more likely to be balanced or at 'correct' points values if they are taken fairly often in competitive or semi-competitive formats. Therefore if one were to look at the lists of say... 100 people you could come up with a percentage of how often a vessel is used. I.E. 95% of lists included terror ships, but only 35% contained Kill Kroozers. I'll start work on that soon.